Leading as a coach

100 leaders of a leading hospital gathered together for two days to think about ways to further develop a positive, inspiring and realistic culture throughout their organization. xpand has moderated those two days. We started off with dividing everyone into small groups of 7, and had an expectations-session.

The question was: ‘how would you lead yourself?’ After 2 hours of intensive and creative thinking, a hotlist with 7 main findings was made. The first and foremost topic was the need for coaching from within the organization: ‘I want to receive appreciation and feedback from my team-leader, and I want to receive it on a regularly basis.’

These are in no way unique findings. There is a strong desire for more and especially clearer constructive feedback from above. The need for coaching by the leaders and managers is evident on all levels, throughout all organizations, and within all markets.


How to establish a culture of leaders that coach?

A few ideas:
1. Create a simple structure, and make it clear who is coaching whom. Make sure that the coaches also receive coaching. Every coach should not have more then 10 employees that he or she is coaching.

2. Define a rhythm! It is important that everyone will be able to meet their coach for a coaching meeting at least twice a year. A realistic maximum of coaching meetings is 4 meetings a year. Practice shows that it is also important to plan these meetings well ahead, and to really put them down in your agenda.

3. Take some time to prepare for the meetings! Both the coach and the employee should prepare themselves for the meetings. They would do well, for instance, to read through their notes of the previous meeting, and they should already formulate certain questions.

4. Ask questions! The coach mainly asks questions during the meetings. Questions such as:

• What have been successes of these past months that you have been especially glad with?
• What have been some of the tough decisions that you had to make?
• What have been good questions, that you have asked, and that have helped you further?

5. Develop a challenging perspective. Try to (together) create clear, challenging and realistic goals for the next few months. And as a coach, do not forget to ask: ‘What can I do for you, to support you in realizing your goals?’

Book recommendation

Coaching for performance - Sir John Whitmore
This classic is one of the best books out there about how to be a leader and a coach at the same time. Whitmore presents a clear and realistic process on how to coach employees, and how to support them to grow in their confidence and self-responsibility. He gives a lot of examples out of practice on how to ask excellent questions, and many other very useful tools.


With best regards
Paul Ch. Donders